My Golden Pints 2012

It’s been strange old year, I’ve possibly not drank as many new beers or got out as much as I’d have liked, but I did get to brew a beer for my wedding with Roosters, help brew Truefitt’s 50th brew, spend the day in a michelan star kitchen then cook for them courtesy of Sharps and spend a long weekend in Belgium, so after much deliberation here’s who my awards are going to this year.

Best UK Draught (Cask or Keg) Beer: 1st Hawkshead NZPA , 2nd Truefitt Erimus – it’s not only a great beer but I have it on handpull in my garage! 3rd Roosters Wild Mule – always a favourite when we go to the Blackwell Ox for Thai Food

Best Overall Beer: Tough one but probably Rodenbach Caractere Rouge as the time and place and beer were spot on, it was a great end to the perfect night.

Best Pumpclip or Label: 1st: Durham Brewery’s Hell fire – if I was into tattoos I’d get this one for sure! 2nd: Mordue Pandazilla: 3rd Truefitt Range…although I am biased as we designed them at work.

Best UK Brewery: 1st: Hawkshead – their range has just about everything and it’s easy to get hold of. 2nd: Roosters – Love all their beers. 3rd: Buxton – they’ve made some truly delicious beers this year.

Best Overseas Brewery – 1st Cantillon – love evertying they do, visiting the brewery a few weeks ago was the icing on the cake, 2nd Orval, 3rd Goose Island

Pub/Bar of the Year: Tough one, probably Cambrinus in Bruges the food was excellent and the beer was out of this world, 2nd: Bacchus Newcastle tied with the Front in Falmouth, 3rd Free Trade Inn Newcastle and The Maltings in York Tied.

Beer Festival of the Year: Hawkshead Summer(?) Beer festival – great company, amazing beer range, brilliant food and even better BBQ on the second day, shame about the weather. 2nd The Indyman was great, drank a lot of good beer (and cider) and enjoyed the craic.

Supermarket of the Year: 1st Booths – don’t go very often but when i do they always have an amazing range of beer, 2nd: Morrisons their range has inproved in my local shop 3rd: Tesco again have improved their range in my local.

Independent Retailer of the Year: I’ve used a few this year but i’ll say Crafty Pint in Darlington as it’s the closest to me and it’s new.

Best Online Brewery presence: Not sure, there are definatley more breweries taking their online stuff seriously…still room for improvement though.

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: The whole menu in Den Dyver in Bruges, it blew me away! Other than that Hardknott Rhetoric and chilli and fennel pizza followed by anything spicy/salty/porky/with wasabi and any which ever beer took my fancy.

Open Category 1: Best restaurant: Den Dyver, Bruges, It was simply amazing, not cheap but the whole experience was brilliant from start to finish, even the Mrs drank all her beers and ate all her food.